I have spoken about this subject before on 365 Less Things, however, having just moved, I am finding it necessary to do a little more of it. Things have become a little scattered during my move. Mainly due to the fact that rooms have been eliminated from my options of where and how to store things. The office space/craft area/parents retreat has turned into the office space/craft closet/guest bedroom. The laundry/third toilet/storage closet has become the laundry closet. The kitchen/family room/dining/living room/entry with cupboard has become the living room/kitchen/dining room. And needless to say there are a lot less walls to hang our art and photos on.

Call me strange but I am having a fun time bringing like things together and eliminated bits and pieces of stuff that just aren’t fitting well into our new smaller home.

Functionality within a home very much depends on the ease of use. Eliminating things that just get in the way and the bringing together of similar items makes it simpler to find what you need and to get your hands on them quickly. How often have you given up on the idea of an activity because it is all to hard to find what you need and/or to dig it out from among all the other stuff.

Today I was reshuffling my craft supplies in the guest room cupboard. My objective was to make them easier to access when my creative juices were flowing. I have a number of craft cubes that can be arranged in several ways. I has a plan to insert some of the spare shelves so that containers were separated rather than awkwardly stacked on top of one another. Aside from the physical action of reshuffling the items and inserting the shelves a little decluttering was required. It was only a little but it made a huge difference. I decluttered two bobbins (which didn’t even work in my machine) making it possible to declutter the bobbin holder. This small effort made it possible to minimise the space required for my sewing kit which in turn made it possible to reshuffle everything.

The lesson is that even a small declutter, in the way of consolidating and refining, can make a big difference to the functionality in your home. So never underestimate the effect of a small amount of effort or change.

It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow

Deb J

We moved here to Arizona 5 years ago. We had very benevolent former owners. They just knew we could use a number of things so left them here for us. Along with a yard containing 6 fruit trees, two rosemary bushes, two grapevines, a jasmine, a honey suckle, 5 Texas Sage bushes, 3 western petunias, 8 rose bushes and a bougainvillea. They also left a couch, two garden chairs, a metal patio sink, and bunches of “construction/building” materials. Now, mind you, they had done a wonderful job of updating the house. The kitchen was “to die for” and the pantry and laundry area were very handy. They had screened the porch and then put lattice work around the patio so it was private with an arbor holding up the grapevines as the entrance to the patio from the yard. They had put in an irrigation system for all of the trees, bushes and flowers. It is a beautiful place that we bought for a song. BUT!!!! Why did they think we wanted their cast offs? Have you ever had this happen to you? You start moving into a house you think has been vacated only to find all sorts of detritus laying around. You aren’t sure what you might need and what is just junk. You don’t know the house that well yet. So what do you do?

I suggest you do what we did. We asked a couple of male friends to come over and gather all of the stuff from wherever it had been dropped. It was in the house, in the back yard, in the two sheds, and under the house in the crawl space. What was all of this stuff? Why did they leave it? Did we need it? The smart thing was to ask people to help us who knew construction and repair. They were able to decide what was important to keep and what was just junk lying around that the former owners didn’t want to take the time to dump. After a few hours the guys were able to haul off a pickup truck load of junk. One of them kept a good bit of supplies that weren’t even for our house but things that were used by the former owner who played neighborhood handyman. We still had a few things left that we didn’t need but we hung onto them for the next neighborhood rummage sale. These were things like lamps, a rug shampooer, two chairs, a side table, some indoor carpeting, some outdoor carpeting and some paint. When we were finished, the back shed was empty except for one piece of carpeting, some fencing and some replacement lattice pieces. The front shed was also empty of everything but some nails, screws, and special light bulbs. Under the house only held some extra piping for the irrigation system. The house, porch and patio were free of anything they had left behind. We found the couch to be so nicely made and comfortable that we gave our couch away and brought it in to use in our living room. It took awhile but it was soon all the detritus was cleared away and we had a nice decluttered house to move into. The next time I move I will make sure to tell the owners to take all their junk with them unless they explain why I might need something they want to leave.

Have you ever found yourself in this situation and what did you do to sort the wheat from the chaff.

It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow

Cindy

Last month, I helped my friends, The E family, move. In the last month, I also helped my daughters’ school pack for a move. The Es have lived in their house 13 years; the school has been in this location 10 years.

Let me tell you, I have seen a lot of junk, stuff, things, good stuff that’s no longer needed, beautiful useful items, heirlooms, and lost & found in the past month. A lot.

Moving really forces you to focus in on what’s essential. This is especially true for the school, which is being torn down and rebuilt. For the first half of the next school year, The Girls’ School of Austin will operate nine grades (K-8) in a church that used to rent its extra space to a preschool. A preschool. To say that the girls will be cramped and the teachers will need to be flexible is probably an understatement.

The Es were in the fortunate position of moving across town and into a a home that is both lovelier and larger than their previous home.

But whether it’s a school or a family, moving involves the same essential processes and the same opportunities to declutter and downsize your possessions.

Anticipation

You know the move is coming. Maybe next week, maybe next year, but it’s never too early to start. (For those of us who aren’t moving, just keep decluttering. Every now and then, you hear of someone who had to / got to move totally unexpectedly, and if this is you, you’ll be glad you already reigned in your stuff.)

I think it can be hard to get going in this stage; the move is still so far away. Well life is going to keep on happening, and moving day will arrive before you know it, so start small and keep going.

Staging

In the US, “staging” your house has become the new normal. That’s where you pretty the whole house up to look really nice, but it doesn’t necessarily look much like your house any more. Personal pictures are removed, new towels are hung, things that you’ve lived with happily mismatched for a decade suddenly need to be matched. This is staging. (And if you think staging – or at least cleaning – isn’t important, check out these photos. This site always makes me laugh and cringe.)

This is also another chance to declutter. Since you’re removing all these items, think about whether they still serve you. Whether you need / want / and enjoy them anymore. Now that you own the new matched towels, shouldn’t you use them and donate the old towels to the animal shelter?

Packing

It’s the main event folks! The time when you will touch every single thing you own. Every single thing. Let’s let that sink in for a moment. (And if you’re Colleen, you will not only touch every single thing you own, you will have to write it on a list – literally. That’s what the Australian Air Force requires when it moves its personnel.) Leave yourself enough time to actually think about what you’re packing, rather than just cramming it all in a box as fast as possible. Either you or your employer is paying for each and every item, each and every box. Even if you’re moving yourself you’re paying – in exhaustion, favors owed, beer, etc. Think about what you are packing and make sure you have enough time to dispose of the unwanted items in an appropriate manner.

Unpacking

The second half of the main event. Probably the last time you will touch every single thing you own, until the next move. (Dan swears that he’s not moving until he is in a box.) Not everything will fit or work in your new location. As you’re unpacking, this is the time to make the second pass of deciding if you really need four glass pitchers and 20 framed photos of your children ages 1 – 2.

Your first unpacking and arranging shouldn’t be your last. After you live in your new location for a time, you’ll realize that the silverware, towels, books, dish towels – something – really isn’t stored in its best location. Don’t be afraid to move and fine tune your home. A more efficient arrangement can also mean more decluttering and less chance of cluttering later when you can’t find what you want, even though you know it’s here, somewhere.

Good luck E family and good luck GSA. Good luck to any readers who are moving. My love to you all!

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter some money related items. Old money boxes, wallets, bill clips, change purses, coin sorters, coin wrappers or bags… . You could also drop foreign coins off to the bank for donation to charity or gather up all the coins that you have accumulated and cash it in at the bank by either depositing it into your account or getting bills in exchange.

Eco Tip For The Day

Here is an eco tip that is good for your waistline, your wallet and food waste. When going out for morning tea or lunch with a friend why not share that slice of cake, piece of pie or lunch dish. I do this all the time with my friends because usually the servings are large enough for two to share. We just ask for an extra plate and cutlery and split it between us before hoeing in.

It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow

Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom

Cindy

While we have plenty of old pros here at 365 Less Things, we have plenty of drop-by readers and lurkers, some of whom are probably in denial about their need to declutter. So here’s my checklist, roughly arranged from the most obvious to the most subtle clues that you should use if you think that maybe you don’t really need to declutter.

• You rent a storage unit.
• Your garage, basement, or attic looks like a storage unit.
• You have a whole room devoted to storage.
• You have a door in your home that you cannot open.
• You have a door in your home that you cannot open safely or without throwing your body in front of the opening as you pull on the door.
• You wish you had a room that you could devote to storage.
• Or worse, you are considering moving or adding on to your home, just for storage.
• You sometimes wish that your house would just burn down so you wouldn’t have to deal with it any more.
• Your friends offer to come over and help you get organized.
• You are surrounded by possessions that you do not like or enjoy.
• You are surrounded by possessions that were given to you by someone who is dead, and you do not like and enjoy them.
• You believe that more storage is the solution to your problems.
• You do not have friends or family over.
• When friends and family do come over, you need at least a week’s notice, and it’s a stressful week.
• You cannot use the furniture as it is intended to be used because it is used as storage.
• You have make-shift storage (i.e. overflowing baskets, laundry baskets, a bunch of stuff bundled up into a table cloth and hidden in the garage, etc.)
• You got remarried, moved in with parents, etc., and now you have two (at least!) of everything.
• Anyone has ever said the words “fire hazard” while looking around you home.
• Anyone has ever said the words “estate sale” while looking around your home.
• Your closets are so full that you have to use your body as a wedge to get something in or out.
• You shop and hide the evidence.
• You shop for non-consumables more than once a month.
• Shopping is your favorite hobby – or one of them.
• You buy things because they are a bargain.
• You buy things because you “might” need it and aren’t sure if you already own one.
• You buy duplicates because you don’t know what you have or where it is.
• You buy for a current hobby at a rate that outpaces your ability to do that hobby.  (You buy dozens of books at a time, dozens of yarns skeins , dozens of patterns, hundreds of Legos, etc.)
• You don’t overbuy on yourself, but on your children or grandchildren…well that’s another matter.
• Your living room looks like a preschool classroom.
• Your children don’t play with half their toys. They don’t even know what half their toys are!
• You pulled a bunch of stuff out of a closet to organize it, and it’s been sitting outside the closet for more than two weeks, with no progress being made.
• The phrases “I might need it some day” “I’ve never used/opened that” “But I spent so much money on it” and “I intend to do XX project with that some day” have come of out your mouth sometime in the past 6 months.
• You don’t know what’s in the boxes in your attic, basement, garage, storage unit, etc.
• If the IRS (or your country’s taxing agency) called you for an audit, you could not lay your hands on the proper paperwork in less than 5 minutes.
• You pay bills late because you don’t know where they are.
• Your pantry looks like it is the store.
• You regularly throw foods away because they’re expired, you bought too much, or you do not like what you purchased.
• You have supplies for crafts or hobbies that you no longer do/enjoy.
• You cannot find everything in your house in less than 5 minutes.
• You have ever uttered the phrase “It’s in one of five places.”
• You own duplicates of useful items, but you really only need one.
• In the past year, you have not given away, sold, or donated any goods to charity.
• You have to step around anything on your floors, except furniture.
• You love to save little goodies from your travels, but you never look back on them.
• You take dozens of pictures at every conceivable event.
• You never delete an email.
• You save articles on decluttering and organization, but that’s as far as it goes.
• You have a sofa or bed side table that’s actually a stack of reading material.
• You have clothes in more than two sizes.
• You think that if you just had a $1000 gift card to The Container Store, everything would be all right.

Today’s Mini Mission

Declutter under the bed ~ One young reader (not mentioning any names) was decluttering under her bed last week due to Moni’s blog post. I don’t need to tell you how much easier it is to keep this area dust and lint free when there is nothing to clean around or move.

Today’s Declutter Item

Here is something that was being stored in a drawer under the end of my bed until they were sold on ebay recently.

Bib and Brace Ski Pants

Something to be grateful for today

I have been making progress on our household inventory. It has been a good opportunity to do some declutter fine tuning in the kitchen. It should be plain sailing after the kitchen is out of the way because that is where most of the small individual items are.

“In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” Brother David Steindl-Rast

It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow

You may love to cook or you may hate it. No matter how you feel about cooking, I bet you have at least 6 cookbooks, and I’m certain that someone reading this blog today has at least sixty cookbooks. They’re fun to look at, fun to collect, fun to page through and dream with. But let’s be realistic: they’re also expensive, easy to ignore, and hard to declutter.

Prior to December 2009, I probably had two dozen cookbooks, and I don’t think I’d ever gotten rid of one that I owned. I just added to the pile; I loved them. When we remodeled our kitchen, I had a special bookshelf made just for them; it took up the majority of the storage space at my kitchen desk. Then my daughter was diagnosed with diabetes, and I knew our diets had to change. There were foods I was probably never going to make again, and I decide to get rid of cookbooks without mercy. I thought I would be heartbroken; I thought I might cry.

Prior to purging them, I decided that I would look through each one and photocopy those recipes that I could not live without. In the end, I had paged through all those books - all those treasures - and I copied fewer than 10 recipes. Ten! What an insight! The books that I loved and cherished were, in truth, almost worthless to me!

After the purge, I still owned a Cooking Light Slow Cooker book (because the recipes are good and because it contains the nutritional information I need), a Better Homes and Garden plaid cookbook (because I thought it would be wise to hang onto a basic book) and my own recipe binder. Later, I realized that I truly missed Horn of the Moon Cookbook, and I “borrowed” it back. (Thanks Lisa!)

Now I had far fewer cookbooks, but still there was a special shelf dedicated to them, taking up precious space at my kitchen (only) desk.  What a waste of space! I was trying to carry on the majority of the family business at a desk with just one shallow drawer, and here was a big gaping hole below. And, of course, it was getting junked up. Although not everyone has the same luxury I did in this situation, my kitchen cabinets were custom made, so I had drawers made. Two beautiful, spacious, useful drawers, which improved my desk situation 100%. I moved a couple of rarely-used oils into the pantry and put the cookbooks in the narrow cabinet between the vent hood and the wall.

Photo on Left: The hole where the cookbooks were stored has now been replaced with two useful drawers, so new that they still need paint. This space was 24 inches deep, 30 inches wide, and 18 inches high (12,960 square inches). Photo on Right: Cindy's cookbook collection can now be stored in a narrow cabinet, 13 inches deep, 9 inches wide, and 15 inches high (1,755 square inches). Now that is a whole lot of reclaimed space.

Next week I’ll discuss how I manage to be a from scratch cook without a storepile of cookbooks, but in the meantime, I want you to consider what you could do with the extra space you’d gain if you purged your cookbooks.

Today’s Declutter Item

I do have one or two cookbooks still to declutter but they need to be processed first. So today I offer this Art School book instead. I have already taken it to the thrift shop and it was already sold by the end of my shift.

One more book gone

Something I Am Grateful For Today

I am grateful in advance for the weather holding out until my sheets are dry. I am hoping that my powers of positive thinking will make this a reality.

“In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” Brother David Steindl-Rast

It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow

There has been one item in our home that has been there tormenting us for three years. This otherwise harmless item is pictured below for you amusement…

Like I said it looks harmless enough and yet it has been a constant source of clutter torture for far too long.

The lamp has been assembled then dismantled then all the wiring pulled out of it then assembled then dismantled then assembled again. Our intention, when we brought it home to Australia from the USA, was to rewire it and continue to use it in our new home. USA runs 120 volts while Australia runs 240 volts if you were wondering why there was a wiring issue but I digress. We got as far as pulling all the wire out of it and then decided we weren’t skilled enough or certified for that matter to rewire it.

It has occupied space in the living room, in the garage, under the camphor wood chest and finally the garage again where we see it every time we drive in. It has not been decluttered before now because I was still considering getting it professionally rewired. Needless to say that just hasn’t happened. I think I knew long ago that it would cost more to rewire it than it was worth and we don’t need it anyway.

Yesterday I decided to call a halt to the clutter torture and listed it on Freecycle. I honestly described it as needing rewiring but that I thought all the parts were still there, and hoped someone could use it rather sending it to the trash. It lasted about 10 minutes before someone claimed it and by lunch time today it was gone.

Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we hold on to the things that irritate us every time we look at them when it is that easy to be rid of them? I love Freecycle, it is a wonderful way to pass on our unwanted stuff.

5 things I am grateful for today

1. Neighbours – they are great for lots of things but especially for lending us their stuff to try before you buy our own.
2. More bang for your buck – A muffin and a cappuccino is one thing – a home cooked muffin dusted with icing sugar, butter on the side with a garnish of sliced strawberry with a cappuccino just seems like better value for your money even if it is the same food.
3. One pot meals – so simple yet so yummy.
4. Another glorious Spring day
5. Digital Kitchen Scales – mine are no bigger than a small paperback but so functional.

Minimalizing Chemical Clutter

Guest Post by Betty Jo Martin – joy with less

Over twenty years ago I was diagnosed with Multiple Chemical Sensitivities (MCS). In broad terms MCS means an unusually severe sensitivity or allergy-like reaction to many different kinds of pollutants including solvents, VOC’s (Volatile Organic Compounds), perfumes, petroleum, diesel, smoke, mercury, lead,  “chemicals” in  general. The list of toxic chemicals used today in our homes, yards, and offices/studios are too numerous for me to list.

My physical decline began in my thirties when the first ever fillings were placed in five of my teeth. The dentist used dental amalgam fillings, sometimes called “silver amalgams,” which are actually half mercury. Within two days of having the dental work, I experienced severe pain in my limbs and along my spine. It was so painful I couldn’t hold a teacup, or climb the stairs to our bedroom. I sat up at night due to the excruciating pain in my back. I spent many days and weeks bedridden. Periodically, and for several days at a time, the pain would lessen somewhat and I could actually make it up and down stairs without crawling or being carried.

We were living in England at the time, serving with a benevolent organization as hospitality couple to families passing through the UK from around the world. We maintained a huge, rented, centuries old stone house in the country. It was similar to running a bed and breakfast. My husband also traveled five days into London working with book, and humanitarian aid distribution. I took care of school activities with our boys, the daily running of the house, and handled many of the hundreds of inquiry letters received by the organization. We also traveled many weekends with the ministries outreach programs.

After hospital tests I was diagnosed with a viral infection in my spinal column and told there was no treatment except bed rest. We never accepted that diagnoses and decided to continue our search for answers and hopefully a cure. Of course it was basically impossible to handle the vigorous work schedule, which took the two of us working together as a team, so we decided to take a less strenuous position in the US.  My husband would continue his work with the organization in one of their book distribution warehouses, traveling often. I would stay home, coping with my disabilities, and starting a very long trek through the maze of doctors and further medical tests. It was extremely difficult, and some days it took all I could do simply to get from my bed to our living room couch due to the horrific pain in joints, back, and head, much less face specialists and tests. At the time, we, nor any of the doctors I consulted, connected the amalgam fillings to my becoming basically an invalid within a couple of days of having them. That knowledge came years later.

Once back in the US the viral infection in my spinal column was ruled out as being nonexistent, as I suspected it would be. I was tested for MS, which one doctor was totally convinced I had. There were also tests for other immune mediated diseases. But, to everyone’s amazement, all of my diagnostic tests proved negative to any disease!

To make a long story shorter, I’ll now jump ahead three or four years.

My husband decided to take another “job” with less traveling, giving him more time to help me. We relocated to Chicago, IL where my husband was employed by a book company. A board member of the company rented a house to us only minutes from where my husband worked. This gave him opportunity to check in with me several times a day. It was an older home and my husband painted rooms, put up wallpaper, and made many repairs. We were only there for a short time when my health took a nose dive, the pain grew worse than ever, and again I was bedridden for long periods of time. I experienced relentless “brain fog”. Fighting depression was a daily affair.

When a new friend I met at church heard of my plight she began to educate me about chemical toxins and how they can affect our health, especially the immune system. My hubby and I began to read everything we could get our hands on about the subject. We read incredible information by Theron Randolf, Debra Lynn Dadd, Lynn Lawson, Doris J. Rapp. Light bulbs came on! It didn’t take us long to piece together that the toxic mercury in the dental fillings I received in England was the beginning of the damage to my immune system. I was later tested for mercury and I registered extremely high with mercury toxicity. We then realized that other toxins in our environment continued to add to the load, affecting my immune system even further.

We began to hunt down the toxins in our environment and rid our lives of the chemical clutter. We were forced to leave the home we occupied, due to new paint and repairs, a gas heat system and cook stove, as well as the volatile gasoline toxins from the myriad of cars passing our home daily in the congested Chicago area where we lived. We relocated to rural North Carolina, my hubby taking a job managing a pizza parlor, and to continue our cleansing process surrounded by cleaner air and natural beauty.

We learned that as consumers we were spending a lot of money on products containing toxic materials that were adding to my physical digression, and possibly harming our children in ways that might not be detected until they were older. We also began to realize the impact toxic products have on the environment at large.

I saw immediate relief from a lot of the physical problems as we began to replace household toxins with natural products. Although to this day I still have severe sensitivities to many, many chemicals I am now able to live a limited, but somewhat normal life, without daily pain. It is basically impossible to live in a chemical free environment, but I can and will, continue to minimize my exposure as much as possible.

Since reading much in the minimalist online community I’ve come to realize that clearing the chemical clutter from my home was the actual beginning steps to a more simple lifestyle and minimalism. Another reason I chose joy with less as the name of my blog.

Here are a few of the products we purged years ago, and perhaps something on the list will inspire you to clear away chemical clutter in your environment. For more in-depth information do a computer search of individual chemical names found on a product’s packaging. One of the best online sources for further info I’ve found is ATSDR (http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxfaqs/index.asp).

• Gas heat, cook stove, and hot water heater (Switched to electric. Solar power is even better.)
• Chemically filled household cleansers
• Oven cleaner
• Synthetic materials in clothing
• New furniture
• New cars
• New carpet
• Pesticides: I use an electric (ultrasonic) device, and haven’t had any household pests in years.
• Deodorizers, air fresheners
• Nail polish and nail polish remover
• Shoe polish
• Paint, paint strippers
• Dry cleaning
• Perfume/cologne or perfumed personal grooming products
• Chemically laced: shampoo, deodorant, toothpaste, and lotions
• Prepackaged products sold as food with long chemical lists of ingredients
• Canned foods
• Most plastics: food containers, plastic wrap, bottles, cups, place mats, shower curtains, toys, just to name a few
• Dryer sheets
• Newspapers and magazines

Symptoms of exposure to the chemicals found in these items can include headache, backache, stiff and painful joints, nausea, diarrhea, asthma or allergy attacks, dizziness, memory loss, stuttering, premature puberty, low sperm count, reduced motor skills, sudden mood swings, dyslexia, ADHD, anti-social behavior/autism and birth defects, depression, among others. Pound for pound, children’s exposure levels are higher than adults because, although the amount of chemicals in an exposure remains equal, children’s bodies are smaller so the concentration is stronger. Also, their immune systems are still developing. Children are probably the highest risk population for chemical exposures. For many of these same reasons, pets may also be at risk. Other populations with a pronounced risk are breast cancer victims, the elderly, asthma and allergy sufferers and those with compromised immune systems.

Thank you Colleen for the invitation to share my story on your wonderful blog.

ITEM 253 OF 365 LESS THINGS

I hope some one will find these bits and pieces useful they are remnants from days when I used to sew more.

Today I am giving you a tally of what has been thrown away, what has been given away and what has been sold on eBay since the beginning of my new years resolution of 365 less things. There is an upside and a downside to this count though.

The upside is that most of the items I have uncluttered from my home have either been donated to charity, given to friends or sold on eBay. As I have mentioned before the advantage to this is that they have gone to  new homes where they have the chance of being used to their true potential.

The downside is that the reason behind the fact that there has been so little thrown away is because we had a home full of clutter that had not been used to it’s full potential. Which means we should probably not have wasted our money on them in the first place.  I console myself  that some of the items were things my children had needed but grew out of and others were items that had become un-necessary due to the latest change of location but still there must be many things that were just a waste.

I am reasonably happy though that I didn’t have a home full of garbage and that the items that have been thrown away so far wouldn’t even fill a wheely bin.

This is the tally so far

• 21   have been thrown away
• 90  have been donated or given away
• 21   have been sold on eBay at the value of $553.25

In future I will keep a running tally of this break down under the heading Give away – Throw away – Sell under the Pages List in the right side collumn of my blog.

ITEM 132 OF 365 LESS THINGS

Some more scrapbook magazines I tried to sell two of these on eBay without success they have all been donated to charity

Previously I mentioned how a change of  location and or lifestyle can have an impact on the necessity for certain  items around your home. Our move from Seattle in the USA back to Australia has rendered our ski gear mostly useless to us as we are now 700km from the closest ski fields. Sure we might like to take a winter holiday to the snow some time but in Australia you can hire both ski clothes and equipment should that ever happen. We also have some items that no longer fit our children anyway. So I decided to sell it all on eBay.

Now I did my homework first and checked similar completed auctions on eBay to see how this type of product was selling and it didn’t look that great but I figured I would give it a shot anyway and take what I could get. The goggles in particular weren’t performing very well.

I am pleased to be able to say my auctions have gone very well. Everything I put up for auction sold and now there is a lovely big space in one of the cupboards in our house. The combined starting price for my auctions was $108.00 and the total amount that I fetched was $312.00, “got to be happy with that”. Those 4 pair of goggles I mentioned brought in $147.87 of the total.

Altogether I sold…

• 1 adult jacket
• 3 kids jackets
• 4 kids pants
• 2 pair of kids gloves
• 4 pair of goggles (2 kids 2 adults)

I haven’t had any feed back yet but I hope the buyers will all happy with their purchases.

ITEMS 127 OF 365 LESS THINGS

I have decided to list each combined auction sale as one item because otherwise I will be boring you with ski gear for the next two weeks as it is it will take ten days to get through it all. These two items sold for a grand total of $37.50.

I live in a townhouse so I don’t have much to care for in the way of garden or lawn but for what I do have I am endevouring to minimalise the amout of equipment and time required to maintain it.

I only purchase/aquire plants that can survive my neglect, requiring little watering or pampering in any way and hardy enough to cope with the varying climate we can get here at times.

When we first moved into the property we owned a lawn mower and an edge trimmer which seemed a little overkill for a lawn 5m long by 1.5m wide so my husband bought a rotory hand mower and gave the other items to charity.

After using the hand mower a couple of times I decided that was hard work so the next time the gardener that maintains the common areas of the property came to do his work I asked him what he would charge me to trim the edges and cut the lawn in the back of my home. He said he would do it for a carton/slab of beer at Christmas each year. “BARGAIN” deal done.

As a result of exploring options and choosing wisely when adding plants I now have a garden that requires little maintenance or equipment. Today I will send the last of the redundant gardening equipment that has been lurking in the garage to the give-away pile.

I might add we have no intention of ever again living in a propery that has big lawns and gardens so I don’t expect ever to have to replace the gardening equipment that we have purged over that last couple of years

Colleen’s Helpful Hint of the Day

If you should accidently write on a whiteboard with perminent marker just scribble over it with the whiteboard marker and it should rub right off.